Firefox 3 Beta 1 Review

DaMan writes "The newly-released Firefox 3 beta 1 has been reviewed by ZDnet and the verdict is that it is good. 'Is Firefox 3.0 going to be better? Given what I'm seeing so far, I think so. Why? Because it looks like Mozilla have gone back to basics and worked on what really matters to users — security, speed and ease of use ... Everything about Firefox 3.0 beta 1 is fast. The download package is small which means that it comes in fast, the installation is fast, the browser fires up fast, pages and tabs open fast, the browser shuts down fast, and the uninstall process is fast and painless.'"

First Post ?

If so it's made with Firefox 3 Beta 1 Yeah ! (If not, well it's made with Iceweasel 2.0.0.9)

Comparison Photos

Firefox no extentions http://www.forumpix.co.uk/uploads/1195566731.jpg [forumpix.co.uk]
Firefox with extensions http://www.forumpix.co.uk/uploads/1195566750.jpg [forumpix.co.uk]
Opera http://www.forumpix.co.uk/uploads/1195566796.jpg [forumpix.co.uk]
IE http://www.forumpix.co.uk/uploads/1195566785.jpg [forumpix.co.uk]

Re:Comparison Photos

All 4 look identical to me:

The connection has timed out
The server at www.forumpix.co.uk is taking too long to respond.
* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.
* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.
* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

About damned time

"Because it looks like Mozilla have gone back to basics and worked on what really matters to users -- security, speed and ease of use"

Well, thank the Spaghetti Monster. Why did it take so damned long to convince them that was more important than constantly fiddling with the widget layer and whatever else they were doing? Why the nearly 5 year flame war over whether a browser that takes up 2 GB of memory is technically leaking it or not?

Who would have ever thought that having a secure browser that quickly loads pages and doesn't crash your machine would be enticing to users?

I've been using Camino...

I've been using Camino because it's got a fraction of the overhead of Firefox and doesn't have the insecure XPI installer design.

Pity there's not a similar lightweight native Firefox derivative for Windows.

So... is Firefox secure, or does it still have the "I'm going to ask you to do something stupid in 10 seconds" countdown when you click on an install link for an XPI file? I swear, they have made it less convenient to install extensions in Firefox than they would have by just letting you download them and install them manually, and they've had to close at least one security hole related to this unnecessary flourish.

Re:I've been using Camino...

But... Firefox is already a lightweight derivative... of Mozilla Suite (SeaMonkey)...

It's lightweight in that it has less compiled code in it, alas it makes up for it with an excessive amount of scripted code.

Re:I've been using Camino...

However, if I'm going to use Firefox without the extensions, then I might as well be using IE or Opera. Opera is fast, but without the extensions, isn't even close having as many features as Firefox. Extensions are what gives Firefox it's usefulness. Here's the extensions I use on a regular basis. Flashblock, Hackbar, IE View, Reload Every, Save As Image, Web Developer. That's what suits me. I'm sure everyone else who uses Firefox has their own list of extensions that they find useful, yet would be completely useless to me. Take away the extensions, and you've just taken away the whole point of running firefox.

Re:I've been using Camino...

They have a lightweight version,it is called Kmeleon [sourceforge.net]. That said,I do hope they fix the memory problem in FF. While I like Kmeleon,I do miss my extensions(although they have added adblock support,which was my main extension)

Re:I've been using Camino...

Someone wants to remind you of a great example. Cancel or allow?

Re:About damned time

What flamewar? For nearly two years, Mozilla developers have asked users to file good memory leak bug reports and have even supplied tools for doing so [dbaron.org]. If you're still having problems, simply report them and they can be fixed. You can report any bugs in Firefox 3 beta directly to Bugzilla, or discuss them in the MozillaZine Firefox Builds forum [mozillazine.org] first.

Re:About damned time

I've submitted an explanation about the ping-pong game between the developers and the users as a story [slashdot.org] a while ago. The memory hogging problem boils down to memory fragmentation instead of memory leaks basically, that is why the devs weren't finding leaks and the users feel there are some...guess it turns out both groups were right.

Re:About damned time

Yes, many users were mistaking fragmentation (and caching) for memory leaks. We've been making this exact statement for years in the MozillaZine forums. But there are actual memory leaks, also. You can't point the finger at any one cause. At any point in time, Firefox memory use is some combination of memory needed to display the open pages, various caches (not just the two people talk about all the time), fragmentation, and possibly memory leaks. The only news is that the developers are getting diminishing returns on fixing leaks, and are now turning to reducing fragmentation to reduce normal memory use.

Re:About damned time

Yes, many users were mistaking fragmentation (and caching) for memory leaks. We've been making this exact statement for years in the MozillaZine forums.

That's exactly the "nearly 5 year flame war over whether a browser that takes up 2 GB of memory is technically leaking it or not". The reasoning that just because there is a technical explanation for why it takes 2 GB of memory, doesn't help the poor user who doesn't HAVE 2 GB of memory, and thus his machine slows to a crawl, swapping itself to death.

It may not *technically* be a leak. But it's still a problem.

Re:About damned time

Maybe they need to realize when some pages that people make are taking up too much memory, or some extensions are using too much memory. If you go to a page that adds a couple new elements to the DOM every 3 seconds, and leave it on all night, you're going to end up with your browser consuming gigabytes of RAM. If you have a plugin which doesn't release it's memory, and keeps on asking for more, you're going to have a browser that takes up 2 GB of RAM. If you try to open up a huge XML file with your browser, then you're going to have a problem with the browser taking up lots of memory. Those are the only times I've ever seen my usage go above 200 MB. Under normal browsing conditions, even leaving Firefox open for weeks, I've never seen it go over 200 MB. When it does, it's because some rogue page keeps adding stuff to the DOM.

Re:About damned time

Just last week I went to move 40,000+ small (less than 700 byte) files off an FTP server. I was lazy and decided to just use IE6's built in FTP client. I was moving the files in the background and doing other "work" in Firefox while it moved the files. A few hours later everything on my PC started closing out (crashing), even Explorer and I was left with Firefox and a few other applications running. IE, Explorer, Visual Studio 2005, and a few other applications just aborted when my machine ran out of memory (1G RAM, 2G swap).

Why IE was using over 2G of RAM for moving 40,000 files I have no clue, but I was impressed that Firefox continued to run when even Windows Explorer (and even Visual Studio... Microsoft's "crowning achievement") shut down. I guess Microsoft doesn't plan on running out of memory when coding applications.

Re:About damned time

See pavlov.net blog [pavlov.net] on Memory fragmentation in firefox.

I ran in to this problem back in the days where 4MB of memory was a lot. My program needed a lot of large objects with a short persistence. The upshot of this was that the program soon ground to a halt due to swapping memory I partially overcame the problem by writing my own allocation algorithm which kept separate lists of blocks of different sizes, hence it managed to recycle much of the memory blocks.

Re:About damned time

Oh FFS. Open "about:blank" repeatedly and watch the memory footprint rise and rise. The issue was never with reporting, but with memory "sure we allocate it and never release it but that's not technically a leak, we just don't know what happened to it" leaks being bottom of every developer's priority list.

The strength of open source is that many people want to contribute. The weakness is that they only contribute what they want to contribute

Re:About damned time

So, you've filed a report for this [dbaron.org] -- right?

Re:About damned time

Who would have ever thought that having a secure browser that quickly loads pages and doesn't crash your machine would be enticing to users?

What browser is crashing your whole machine? Are you running Windows 98 and browsing with Internet Explorer?

Re:About damned time

The actual amount of memory used is very low. The problem is fragmentation. [pavlov.net] If Mozilla would actually tackle the real problem instead of focusing on what know-nothing users continuously claim is the problem, it would probably be fixed already.

See, this is in fact the problem - the contempt for the user community. From a user's perspective, this debate of semantics is aggravating and pointless. You see, I don't care what the hell you call it, or even what the root cause is - memory leaking, fragmentation, whatever. In the end, it's simply ridiculous that a damned web browser ends up occupying 2GB of memory. This needs to stop now, and it should have stopped 5 years ago.

I can't actually believe that a group of developers would have a problem where their programs memory usage gradually increased from 10 MB to 2GB over a few days, and actually release it. And not only release it, but carry it over from alpha all the way through to version 2.0.

Re:About damned time

If you think that was bad, have a look at this... [mozilla.org] The amusement starts round about comment #38, two years in...

Speed...

Everything about Firefox 3.0 beta 1 is fast. The download package is small which means that it comes in fast, the installation is fast, the browser fires up fast, pages and tabs open fast, the browser shuts down fast, and the uninstall process is fast and painless.

So it's slow, then?

Re:Speed...

It's so fast you have to think in Russian just to control it.

Memory Leaks

Does it still have memory leaks? Nothing else matters (esp. new features) until they've fixed those. They aren't *quite* so bad on Linux but my friends who use MS Windows have real problems with this.

Re:Memory Leaks

I've found them to be worse on the Mac, actually.

Not trying to start a flame war, I use both on a daily basis.

Re:Memory Leaks

Nothing else matters (esp. new features) until they've fixed those.

Ah, another classic astroturf technique. Firefox doesn't do X, ergo no Firefox for anyone, anywhere!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, millions of people are happily using Firefox without difficulty, and will continue to do so.

Re:Memory Leaks

(NTS: Preview is my firend.)

Oh the irony...

Re:Memory Leaks

Millions of people who browse two or three pages, then close their browser have no problems.

Those of us who leave Firefox running for days at a time have problems. Firefox consumes GIGABYTES of memory in short order for me, and yes, I see this as a major programming fault.

Re:Memory Leaks

I'm trying to come up with a way to respond that doesn't belittle you, because frankly that was a terrible response.

Your suggestion is a workaround. It does not address the actual problem. Despite the fact that "there is no reason" to leave a program running, which is certainly debatable, the simple truth is that even under abnormal operation, a quality piece of code should not dramatically increase its memory footprint to the point of causing system stability issues.

Re:Memory Leaks

I run FF 24/7 for weeks on end on Windows and it never goes over 200MB. I accept it's still a lot but then I also tend to browse lots of forums with crappy animated avatars and the like. I can have 20 tabs open across three windows and it still doesn't go over 200. I'm amazed that some people find it using memory in the order of gigabytes.

Re:Memory Leaks

Does it still have memory leaks?

According to leak diagnostics I've seen posted on blogs, especially if they have extensions installed, it may have.

But those leaks are up to the affected extension authors to fix.

Is Firefox 3 going to be better?

It's sort of sad that we go from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 and when posed the question "Is Firefox going to be better" the answer is simply I think so. But then again I don't have many complaints for Firefox if it would just work a bit better. Aside from that it seems like there has to be a better way for bookmarks, and I'm assuming that they're going to the new database format in FF3, but that isn't even mentioned here. Someone on slashdot brought up the awesome idea of having a homepage option that displays your bookmarks (maybe even drag and drop for organize). I guess that would be a cool feature I'd like to see.

Re:Preinstalled firefox?

Yes, of course, that's why Windows and Internet Explorer are both bit parts in the computer industry, while Linux commands a 90%+ market share.

Preinstalling Firefox would do a hell of a lot to gain market share for it, especially if it was the default browser. But then, to be honest, I'd rather have no web browser bundled with a Windows install, thanks very much.